Housing inventory gets low

The number of homes for sale in the Houston area has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade, a new report shows.

Inventory fell to 4.4 months in October as sales during the month surged, according to the Houston Association of Realtors.

“Our active real estate market reflects the general health of the Houston economy,” Wayne Stroman, the association’s chairman, said in the report, citing the addition of some 96,000 new jobs over the past year.

The low inventory is pushing up prices and leaving home shoppers with few options. A supply of less than six months is traditionally considered a seller’s market.

Housing inventory has remained below a five-month level since August, but it has not been this low since December 2001. Months inventory estimates the time it would take to sell all the homes on the market based on the previous 12 months of sales. The lowest inventory on record was 3.6 months, last reached in December 1999.

Single-family home sales were up 32.7 percent last month, as buyers closed on5,379 homes. The median home price — the figure at which half the homes sold for more and half sold for less — rose 8.7 percent to $163,000.

Sales were up for the 17th straight month, representing the second longest stretch of positive sales in Houston’s real estate history. The first was a 37-month sales run that ended in February 2007, prior to the recession.

Here are sales broken out by price segment:

$1 – $79,999: increased 10.1 percent

$80,000 – $149,999: increased 21.0 percent

$150,000 – $249,999: increased 42.9 percent

$250,000 – $499,999: increased 48.7 percent

$500,000 – $1 million and above: increased 53.4 percent

The association tracks sales through the Multiple Listing Service throughout Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties as well as parts of Brazoria, Galveston, Waller and Wharton counties.

Townhouse and condominium sales were up 41.6 percent from a year earlier.